There are two things that every guest on a zipline tour or challenge course can expect when booking an aerial adventure:
- To read online reviews: Research shows that 93% of travelers say that their booking decisions are influenced by online reviews (TripAdvisor). The more positive reviews they see, the more likely they are to book with you.
- To sign waivers: Like other branches of adventure tourism, ziplines and challenge courses require that guests sign a release of liability form before strapping into a harness. They protect you from lawsuits due to injury or other park related issues. They determine whether or not your business can be sued. And if you do get sued, they can determine the outcome of the case.
You would think that customer reviews and legalese don’t have much in common besides “necessity.” But you might be in for a surprise…
New evolutions in online booking systems, like Xola, enable you to use your digital waiver to grow you business by helping you collect more reviews.
The Group Booking Problem
Waivers aren’t just for lawyers anymore…
Digital forms save you valuable time and help you get guests onto the ropes faster. They also solve an important problem for zipline and challenge course marketers… We call it the “group booking problem.”
In short, the “group booking problem” refers to the idea that most of your bookings are made in groups, but purchases are made by a single person. Based on our own research looking at 315,200 zipline or challenge course bookings in the past year, the average reservation was made for 3.04 guests.
In an industry where one person books for three or more people, traditional review collection methods fall short. Remember the formula: the more positive customer reviews you have, the more likely people are to book with you (instead of your competitor).
Consider this scenario. When someone buys a pair of shoes online, we can safely assume that only one person will use those shoes. When the website collects information at checkout, it captures every customer’s email (since there is only one person wearing the shoes) which can then be used to request a customer review.
However, In the zipline and challenge course industry, bookings are made for groups… Even though you collect the email address of the buyer during the booking process, you miss the rest of the group. If your average guest-per-booking is three people, you’re missing out on 67% of online review opportunities.
To solve this problem, some software providers have suggested collecting the entire group’s contact information during the booking process, but that is a mistake. Additional fields and requirements can significantly decrease your online bookings , especially when dealing with larger groups. Instead, we recommend that you use digital waivers software to collect group information and avoid drops in website conversion rates.
Waiver-Based Review Collection
Savvy zipline and challenge course marketers use digital waivers for more than release of liability protection.They use them to send review request emails to entire groups instead of individual buyers. This enables ziplines to significantly boost the number of new customer reviews they receive.
The moment guests sign a liability release waiver is the perfect time to collect their email address and, ultimately, solicit a review on sites like TripAdvisor. Plus, using your digital waiver software to collect this information increases the likelihood that guests provide accurate information. Win-win!
That’s why Xola’s online booking software integrates seamlessly with digital waiver tools, like SmartWaiver. By collecting contact information using digital waivers, you can automatically capture the emails of every guest and sync with your email marketing software and to reach 100% of your potential reviewers. And if you prefer to use a 3rd-party review program, like TripAdvisor Review Express, you can easily add the emails collected from your digital waiver software and send out a batch of high-converting review request emails.
Conclusion
Zipline software has evolved, creating a fundamental shift in the way that zipline and challenge course operators think about release of liability forms.
Waivers aren’t just for legal protection anymore. They offer a powerful marketing solution that can double, triple, or quadruple your review collection efforts… boosting your brand reputation and encouraging more new bookings.
